Vote Joy Gilfilen
for Whatcom County Executive!

Right now in Whatcom County we are at a turning point for our future. This fall, taxpayers votes will count! One choice is to follow the current Executive branch plan to build a prison-based industrialized economic framework for our children to inherit that is short-term focussed and supports more regulatory expansion and government contractors.

Or, we will vote for Joy and change up the game. The new game is to work with local enterprising farmers, fishermen, social change activists, tribes, municipalities, business and civic organizations to develop restorative economic business models that are forward thinking, revisionary and fulfill the supply and demand challenges of the future.

Standing up for “Local Jobs Before Jails!”

Joy stands for building a local community-based, small enterprise economy. That means Joy will focus on unifying our community, building collaboratives, finding ways that our small towns can reinvest in their downtowns, listen to the people, help businesspeople navigate the world of planning and permits, streamline an online process for bringing the concerns of the people to the Executive and Legislative Branches.

Joy Gilfilen for Whatcom County Executive

Businesswoman for over 30 years in leading edge enterprise, worked in public, private and educational companies.

Spearheaded visionary community development work with the Fairhaven 1990 Task Force, Four Pillars Waterfront Development Proposal, Vibrant Futures Conferences.

Leadership coach of thousands of entrepreneurs as a trailblazer and national leader in the organic foods supplements and network marketing world.

Business Consultant who troubleshoots human-to-technology-to-business systems to streamline and transform production using proprietary methods and creative change models that Joy has developed over 40 years of achievements.

Joy is running a grassroots campaign…for she has been an entrepreneur virtually all her life. She is asking for your contribution and your vote to help our community face the future with a strong local economy holding our children safe.

Your Vote for Joy Gilfilen matters: As your County Executive, Joy is prepared to do more than just run the business of the County for the benefit of the county corporation. Joy knows that the taxpayers are the boss, for they pay the bills. They suffer the consequences of corporate decisions.

Joy is prepared to go to do the leadership work that is necessary to help taxpayers troubleshoot problems and issues with your county government. Is it going to be easy? No. The problems we face today are systemic. Issues are complex: like unravelling excessive regulations that stall good ideas, getting to the roots of generational poverty that is hobbling commerce, identifying how to replace lost jobs in a fast moving technology driven society, figuring out how to balance the use of water and natural resources with the needs to grow food, and building bridges across divisions in political parties that are self-destructive to our community. Here is how we can do it:

Unifying community! Working together, we can step across perceived boundaries to find common ground – the love of our children, our natural resources, our recreational freedom, our land. We must learn to walk together even with all of our differences – for our children’s future is at stake. And we, the voters of today, are the stakeholders of the future. When we fight, we destroy resources and both human and economic capital…it gets expensive. When we unite, we can rebuild, renew and revitalize our resources – maximize our results for mutual benefit!

Leading a public economic development campaign for building local jobs that are in the technology development of tomorrow viewfinder. We need jobs that inspire collaboration, cooperation and teamwork between cities, tribes, and county government. The supply and demand equation for community business is about looking to the future to determine demand, and then prepare to fill the demand with a supply. And the demand of the future is for food, water, shelter, and a living local economy that can sustain economic pressures of a changing world.

“My goal is to reinvigorate a sense of community pride: To help small businesses and enterprising organizations get a hand up to launching their initiatives, and to get the barriers to success out of the way so that we all can thrive. Government is often the problem. Lets change that. Lets use the measure of Quality of Life. That is really the name of the game. We don’t need more regulations, more penalities, more punishment, nor do we need growth for growth’s sake. Maybe we need to downsize our consumption habits and upsize our happiness and freedom. To me, I figure it is far better for our community to have 100 businesses with 10 employees working together creating 1000 jobs, rather than 1 corporation hiring 1000 people.”

Joy continues, “We certainly do not need an alligator of an expanded government operation that has not been adequately vetted. I do not support my opponents incomplete plan to build a $132.5 Million dollar capital improvement project without first examining the real cost/benefit ratio for the taxpayers, and without looking at less expensive and better return on investment solution for the taxpayers. His plan is expensive to the taxpayers. It will not increase long term public safety.
Yes, we need a new jail for this administration has allowed a crisis to develop…and now we need to fix the crisis first. Then, we can plan for what is next.

“Right now, please vote down any sales tax initiatives. They are pre-mature to common sense fiscal management. These initiatives instead of solving problems, will further impoverish our common citizens by putting us in tax debt for life, and take people out of the work force, promoting trauma and violence not health and wellbeing. If this sales tax initiative passes, we will be industrializing the prison industry by creating a blank check for expansion. This is not o.k. Not unless we have examined all other options for putting people to work…not into jail. Jail stunts individuals and community growth, and it is an economic drain on taxpayers. We simply can no longer afford to supplement the private business interests of corporate contractors that do not work for community sustainability.”

Vote for Joy as soon as you receive your ballot for the General Election in November!

Bio for Joy Gilfilen

Speed of Change

Click image to viewThis Video illustrates the challenges facing our society, our teens, our leadership and our businesses. This is part of why we are feeling such enormous emotional distortion and stress.